[Hydrogen-devel] Re: Hydrogen-devel digest, Vol 1 #198 - 13 msgs

[Dave P. <dl...@br...>]

hyd...@li... wrote:

>After I first heard of upcoming multilayer function in
>Hydrogen, I thought to myself: but this is already
>implemented in SF2/AKAI/GIG/etc. on sample format layer.
>
>So why not using SF2 or FlacPak
>(http://swami.sourceforge.net/flacpak.php) for
>drumkits? For editing and creating SF2 there already is
>Swami. This would also ease the PITA with ADSR and full
>MIDI support.
>
>What do you think? At least, FlacPak is worth looking
>at. It uses FLAC lossless compression algorhythm for waves.
>
>Alexandre
>
FLAC is truly impressive. At first it's a little hard to accept the 
claims made for it, but just try it, you'll see it's pretty amazing. 
Alas,  acceptance of FLAC as a standard is still rather slow, but I hope 
that will change soon. It really is excellent software with great 
possibilities for sound & music storage.

>Man, SF2 bites in a big way.  I'll admit, I'd love to see Hydrogen support it, 
>but *not* rely on it.  I haven't even managed to get FluidSynth to smoothly 
>load a complete SF2 font, I get all these "RAW sample not supported" errors 
>that almost certainly depend on raw sample data present in the device the 
>font was intended for that fluidsynth doesn't have.  I'm preparing to buy me 
>a dedicated box just to run Timidity on so I can have a good-sounding 
>softsynth.  ;)
>
Although I use SF2 fonts frequently I'm still a soundfont newbie. What 
fonts give you those errors ?

I use fluidsynth with three different fonts: the 8 MB set from Creative, 
a set of fonts compatible with the Roland GS layout, and the big set 
from Fluid. I haven't had any trouble with those sets.

>Of course, I suppose you're talking about Hydrogen creating drum sound fonts 
>with samples we feed it, and being able to read them and other drum sound 
>fonts, which is a bit different and may not have the problems fluidsynth has 
>over it.  (I'd like to see timidity pick up soundfont support, actually)
>
>Dave
>  
>
TiMidity does do soundfonts. Here's the contents of my ~/timidity.cfg :

    soundfont /home/dlphilp/soundfonts/FluidR3_20GM.sf2

Works well here. Unfortunately TiMidity can be something of a CPU hog, 
and I think fluidsynth handles patch changes better (especially during 
performance).

It seems to me that Hydrogen can only benefit from greater access to 
more file formats, particularly the better-known sample formats (Akai, 
Giga, etc.). Comix, are you considering a change in the file format for 
H's drum sets, or am I misunderstanding this discussion ?

Best regards,

dp